Kids can be pretty horrible. But apparently kids born during a solar eclipse are the literal worst.

On June 9th, 1970, three child were born during an eclipse. A decade later, the kids are 10 and thirsting for blood! Welcome to Bloody Birthday, a movie that is light on the birthday and heaving on the blood (kind of).

Little Debbie is a bit of a nasty devil. She and her cohorts Curtis and Steven all share the same birthday, and as it approaches, their desire for mayhem grows. The night of June 1st, a couple are murdered in a graveyard, shaking up the local community.

Debbie’s father, the sheriff, is on the investigation. But his daughter and her friends knock him out and kill him. While they get away with it, they are caught by a young neighbour, Timmy, sees them.

One day after the sheriff’s funeral, Timmy is playing hide-and-seek with the other boys when Curtis locks him in an old fridge. The boy manages to escape, and tries to tell his older sister, Joyce about. She refuses to believe him, thinking he is only lying, as little boys do.

Debbie disarms her father’s intense home security system one night to let Curtis in. He swaps her father’s real revolver for his play replica. The follow day, he shoots their teacher at school (the kids aren’t subtle). The evil ones hide the body, but Joyce finds it in the closet. Both Joyce and her brother become the number one targets for the trio.

Joyce finds a note from “Timmy” on the door one day, saying he went to the junkyard. Since she’s an older sister and had forbid him to go, she chases after her brother. She of course doesn’t find him, but is instead chased by a car, driven by someone in a hood. She’s nearly run over, but by the time the police arrive, the car is empty.

So it’s pretty safe to say that the girl has had a pretty tough time of it (don’t worry, it will get a lot worse).

Joyce, who is pretty into astrology, realises that Debbie was born during a solar eclipse, and a really bad conjunction of planets. She tells her brother that Debbie is probably missing something that most people have, like the ability to feel emotions for someone.

Unfortunately for them, there were three children born at that time. At their birthday party, they make it plenty clear to Debbie that they’re coming for her. Curtis prank Debbie by pretending to put ant poison in the cake icing. Debbie panics and tells no one to eat the cake, but she soon realises she’s been made the butt of a joke. She looks crazy to everyone at the party.

Later, Debbie’s sister Beverly (and Joyce’s best friend) discovers a ghoulish scrapbook in Debbie’s room. It’s filled with newspaper clipping of the murders that the children committed. Beverly shows their mother, who becomes irate, especially at the clipping about her dead husband. Debbie claims that the boys left it behind, and she’s let off the hook.

But Debbie doesn’t let things go easily. She gets her revenge on her sister. The girl was already charging boys to have a look through a peep hole in Beverly’s room, but she later uses the peep hole to shoot her sister in the eye with an arrow. Debbie gets the boys to help her move the body, but it’s later discovered. Debbie’s very distraught mother is brought into hospital for care.

Being alone, Debbie asks Joyce to babysit her and Timmy to join. That night, the terrible threesome attack. Since the house has an unusual, ridiculously intense security system, it’s difficult for Timmy and Joyce to escape.

They eventually trap Curtis and Steven, but Debbie escapes and is caught by her mother. Debbie explains to her mother that the boys have done terrible things, and that Joyce believes the ‘innocence’ Debbie is guilty as well.

Debbie’s mother believes her daughter (or rather, can’t bare to lose the last member of her family), so she quickly drives away with Debbie in tow. The other boys are arrested, seemingly caught for their crimes.

But little Debbie. She promises to be good. And you can believe a sweet little face like that, right?

What’s pretty unusual about Bloody Birthday is that the film goes straight into how terrible these kids really are. There’s zero mystery. Just an hour and a half of some pretty crappy kids doing crappy stuff. The actress who plays Debbie, though… I mean, I’m plenty terrified of her as a grown woman.

My birthday was this past Sunday. I do like celebrating by subjecting myself to watching homicidal children. Shame I wasn’t born during a really bad conjunction of planets…

Or was I?